Here’s what Viktor Frankl said about the three ways to find meaning (curated and paraphrased from his books and interviews).
This page is intended as a learning resource for educational purposes and only meant to offer an overview/introduction. Short quotes aren’t a substitute for source material, so if this page sparks your interest, explore more deeply by checking out Viktor Frankl’s books (Amazon)—especially Man’s Search for Meaning:
3 Ways to Find Meaning in Life: Action, Experience, Attitude (Viktor Frankl Summary)
“The meaning of life always changes, but it never ceases to be … We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways.” — Viktor Frankl
1. Meaning through Action (Doing):
The realm of value creation (the way of achievement or accomplishment).
- An active answer to life’s question (insofar as we can answer life’s specific questions responsibly).
- Answering through action by doing something (creating a work, doing a deed).
2. Meaning through Experience (Being):
The realm of experiential value (goodness, truth, and beauty).
- More or less a passive path without any striving/doing (that area of existence in which it is possible, beyond being active, for a person to fulfill the meaning of life and answer life’s question in the passive incorporation of the world into the self).
- Experiencing something (art, nature, culture, etc).
- Experiencing someone (another human being in their very uniqueness; the fact that this person exists in the world at all makes this world, and a life in it, meaningful).
- Loving (the way of love or of being loved; loving dedication to the beautiful, the great, the good; meaning can be found not only in work but also in love).
3. Meaning through Attitude (Thinking):
Even when finding meaning is not possible in the first and second ways, you always have the last freedom: to change your attitude.
- When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves (even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself).
- By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering (even suffering contributes to meaning and is part of the meaning of life; in fact, a meaning that is so unconditional that it can be fulfilled even where the suffering does not lead to outward success, where it looks as though the suffering was in vain).
- By bearing witness to the uniquely human potential at its best (courageously going through and shouldering our suffering, transforming a personal tragedy into a triumph, turning one’s predicament into a human achievement).Â
- Taking a stance toward the unalterable, fated, inevitable, and unavoidable limitation of your possibilities (how you adapt to your limitation, react toward it, and accept this fate; how you deal with difficulties truly shows who you are; how you behave under restrictions—the way in which you accept your suffering under such restrictions—while still remaining capable of fulfilling human values).
You May Also Enjoy:
- For an example of living all 3 forms of meaning, see this companion post: A Real-Life Meaningful Example of Saying “Yes to Life” (Short Story)
